As A Novel, Pearl Only Semiprecious

June 27, 1999|By CAROL CAIN FARINGTON Special to the Sun-Sentinel

MOTHER OF PEARL. Melinda Haynes. Hyperion. $23.95. 448 pp.

Reading the rich and languorous prose of Melinda Haynes's first novel, Mother of Pearl, harkens one back to the days when there was time for enjoying a tall glass of iced tea on a porch one perfect Southern afternoon. The year is l956, the month is the hottest August on record, and the pace of life is slow. There is time to notice the red and white straws in the chocolate soda at Kress' on Main Street, and to remark on how much two teen-age friends have grown during the summer. But for all its beauty, and there truly are sentences to marvel at in this work, the book is finally, somewhat curiously, emotionally flat.

It seems to have been percolating for a long time, however, perhaps since the author's early childhood years in the novel's setting of Petal, Mississippi. This is where we first meet Valuable Korner, "named after a `For Sale' sign off Main Street. `Property for Sale. Valuable Corner,' it said." According to Joody Two Sun, a seer who is part Native American, part African-American, Valuable was named such by her deceased grandmother Luvenia. "Luvenia named you Valuable so you'd know you was," she says, "'cause your mama sure weren't. Your last name begins with a K, though."

Valuable ties together the various characters in this town, and unifies the black and white neighborhoods during the early civil-rights era that runs as a drumbeat in the novel. Her best friend and soon-to-be lover is Jackson; but unbeknownst to her, he is also her half-brother. Joody Two Sun divines this, and admits as much to her lover, Even Grade, one of the many black workers of the Bull Gang at a mine in Mississippi.

By the time Valuable discovers she is pregnant by Jackson, his parents have moved him far from Petal. Her mother, who was never much help anyway, has run off with her latest of lovers. Valuable, at the tender age of 15, is pretty much on her own. She moves in with her lesbian Aunt Bea, but her true support comes from Joody and Even, and their extended family. This includes Even's best friend, Canaan, his wife, Grace, and Grace's white charge, Joleb, a friend of Valuable's since childhood.

Haynes's great feat in this novel is writing evocatively about these varied characters and their interrelationships at a time when certain perceptions had dire consequences. Even worries about the appearance of taking Valuable into a segregated neighborhood. "How you think Clorena and the rest of the street's gonna feel wakin' up and seein' a white girl comin' out of our house?" he asks. But Even, an orphan himself, takes on a paternal role with Valuable and her fatherless child, to the point of being criticized by his peers. "You and Joody ... bad as missionaries" Canaan chides his friend. "And you-you got yourself a case of orphanitis, is all. Walkin' around wondering over similarities. Looking at her stomach and her situation, wondering about your own personal mama."

Even takes umbrage at that, having given up wondering about his mama after he confided in Joody Two Sun about his life at the orphanage.

Like Valuable and several other characters, his name has a story behind it, inspired by the note left with him: "`I'm headed back to Mississippi. Tired of the ups and downs of Tennessee. I'm ready now for a more even grade.'" Joody Two Sun "was born on a day Arizona looked to carry two suns in the sky." And even Joleb's naming needs to be explained; his mother, dying in childbirth, was calling out for her lover, Joe Lieberstein, but those around her thought she was naming the child.

All of this is well and good, but by the time we learn that Valuable's child, whether boy or girl, is going to be named Pearl, I was a bit tired of those kinds of explanations and wishing I cared more about the characters. It's a dense work, and the author clearly took the time to get every nuance right. She's been compared to Connie Mae Fowler or Kaye Gibbons but, sadly, this work does not approach the emotional power of Ellen Foster or Before Women Had Wings. Unfortunately, Valuable's compelling story seemed to get lost in the details.